The Reddest Rose
by Vivi Dahlin
Summary: Roses are red, violets are blue, a mother's love is always true... And when sixteen-year-old Regina Mills develops a crush on the stable boy, she learns just how far her mother will go to keep her love and devotion. Cora/Regina-centric, with a dash of Stable Queen. Prequel to "The Prettiest Poison," but may be read as a stand-alone.


**A/N:** I wrote this as a prequel of sorts for my Snow Queen fic "The Prettiest Poison," which takes place about four years after the events depicted here. However, this one mostly stands on its own and it's not necessary to read the other one first (although, it would be super nice if you still did read it and left some feedback :). I've never written a prequel before, so hopefully there aren't too many inconsistencies here. Reviews would be much appreciated. And at this point, I'm pretty sure all my fics should just come with automatic trigger warnings, but in case you're new to my dark and twisty corner of the fandom, heads up: there's some graphic stuff going on in this story, including incest, non-con, and abuse. Don't blame me, I was Cora'd.

* * *

_She loves you . . . not._

The last petal fell from the stem, drifting in a lazy spiral to the stone path at Cora's feet. She tracked its descent with an unwavering eye, as if she might be able to reattach the entire corolla by sheer force of will, but it landed on the gravel with a silence that made the blood rush in her ears—just like all the rest. Scattered around the pointed toes of her white kid boots were petals of an identical color from at least two dozen more roses. She had destroyed half the bush in the past several minutes, standing there plucking petals one by one between her thumb and index finger. In no uncertain terms, they each gave her the same answer to a question that burned deep within her breast, in that hollow space where her heart had once been: Does my daughter love me?

Cora's roses never lied. She had nursed them from infancy with the same vigilance she had shown her baby girl, pruning and weeding out the undesirable traits as they cropped up, fertilizing their soil with the most wholesome feeds (a solid foundation was necessary above all else), and caressing each and every bud with the tenderest hand. She murmured encouragement to them as she worked, calling them sweeter names than any she had ever used on lovers now departed. It seemed only natural when they began to speak back.

She didn't so much hear their voices as absorb them, the way dreams sometimes took on the shape of external stimuli during sleep. But whether divining their words or reading them in the patterns of castoff petals, she had come to trust their counsel above all other. Especially when it pertained to Regina. Cora's lovely young daughter, always so sweet and obedient as a child, was getting more volatile and headstrong with each passing day. Desirable qualities in a queen, perhaps, but not in a girl of sixteen who had yet to secure herself a union with the proper man. It troubled Cora that her usual tactics—kisses and cajoling when the girl was mildly reluctant, threats and use of force when she was downright obstinate—no longer seemed as effective. She would employ any means necessary to discourage bad behavior of course, but she preferred her daughter's easy compliance. Even persuading the girl through magic had become quite taxing in the last several months or so. Regina's spirit was growing strong; luckily, Cora's was stronger.

Still, there had been a subtle shift in recent weeks which Cora couldn't quite account for . . .

_Her heart belongs to another._

A soft gasp parted Cora's lips, and she recoiled from the rosebush as if it had threatened her bodily harm. She stood blinking at the foliage, its pale blossoms swaying in the late evening breeze, diffuse silver moonlight giving them a ghostly glow. It appeared to be alive and breathing, that bush. She couldn't remember when it had gotten so large, so like a hulking beast that crouched in the shadows and waited to pounce. If she were capable of fear, she might have felt it then, in some primitive, instinctual way left over by ancestors whose main defense against predators was flight. But Cora Mills never fled from anything. And all beasts could be conquered, no matter their size.

_Who is it?_ she thought, and when there was little more than a chuckling of leaves, she stepped forward and spoke out in a harsh whisper:

"Who?"

Somewhere in the distance, a barn owl hooted its own similar inquiry, and the roses tittered maliciously at the coincidence. Cora resisted the urge to thrust her hands into their leafy shroud and begin tearing out fistfuls until the centerpiece of her garden was a mangled heap on the ground. She could always grow another, but perhaps the next bunch would be even less forthcoming; there were orchids lining the pathway through the south arbor who still refused to acknowledge her entrance. Such a superior lot, with their waspy faces and boisterous markings. Eventually she would prevail, but right now her concern was with the lavish white blooms before her. If she showed restraint, they would tell her what she needed to hear: for all their supposed coyness, roses were gossipy old biddies.

Sure enough, they rewarded her patience a moment later, conveying the answer on a gust of wind that ruffled their greenery in a prideful display.

_You will know in good time. And you will be his undoing._

His. Cora's fists clenched at her sides and the word echoed through her mind, lengthening with every repetition, becoming a drawn out, serpentine hiss. She might have known it would be a man. The boys had discovered Cora at an early age, her well-developed frame—sturdy and agile from years of hauling grain sacks twice her size and outrunning her father's drunken rages—attracting them like flies to buttermilk. She had done everything in her power to prevent the same from happening with Regina, whether it meant banning any type of physical labor or sprinkling the girl's tea with suppressive powders to ensure her figure remained delicate and childlike for as long as possible. It had worked until around the fourteenth year, when Mother Nature intervened, bringing with her the shapely curves and feminine charms which Regina now possessed. Cora remembered vividly the day she had noticed the tiny buds, no bigger than crocus bulbs, really, where her daughter's chest had once been flat, the slight flare where hips were once narrow. Since then, she kept close watch on Regina's progress, memorizing every contour of soft young flesh, its smooth texture and dusting of golden down rivaling even the prettiest flora. Surely, Cora would be able to _see_ the evidence if anyone should try plucking this—her most precious flower.

Wouldn't she?

Thoughts racing, she ticked off with each finger the short list of Regina's male acquaintances. Most were family on her father's side; cousins whom she saw once every few years or knew only in epistolary form, and uncles who were no more interested in Regina than she in the dolls they sometimes still sent her on birthdays. There were a couple of innocent courtships with childhood beaux, which Cora had allowed—and typically orchestrated—because it gave the girl a chance to practice flirting and domination of the opposite sex. Those interactions were monitored closely, though, and cut short altogether if they became too serious. None of the boys had been suitable marriage material anyway (not a drop of royal blood in their veins), and they were all too frightened of Cora to ever dare pursue her daughter further. She made certain of that.

Save for a few hired hands who didn't even count as legitimate options, the only other man in Regina's life was Henry. This thought comforted Cora somewhat. Not because she was misguided enough to believe fathers never looked upon their daughters with desire; on the contrary, she knew it to be an undeniable fact that they often did. But she also knew without a doubt that her husband didn't have the stomach for such indecency. He could barely lay a finger on Cora herself without quaking in his boots. And since their daughter's birth, he treated the child as one might a religious idol: worshiped and adored, but ultimately untouchable. Cora had seen to that as well. It wouldn't do for such a silly, weak fool as Henry Mills to exert any influence over her daughter. Many times she had used his cowardice against him, terrorizing him with veiled threats of harming the girl if he interfered with Cora's plans for her. Once, when Regina was still in diapers, Cora had given the bottom of one tender little foot a savage pinch while it rested, as weightless as a newborn chick, in the palm of her hand. Regina had awoken with an earsplitting shriek that made even Cora's blood run cold. The magic it took to heal the strawberry stain was rudimentary enough to deliver by kiss, and moments later, Regina had latched back onto Cora's breast, suckling with a vengeance as her eyes rolled drowsily inside their lids and milky spittle leaked from both corners of her greedy mouth. Her screams were replaced by wet, cooing grunts by the time Henry appeared in the nursery doorway, ashen-faced, winded, and thoroughly convinced his child had been murdered.

Yes, if it were Henry who held sway over Regina, the remedy would be simple. A bit of gentle persuasion here, a tweak followed by a mother's soothing caress there. Cora knew her daughter better than anyone, and therefore knew just how to win the girl's favor. But in the off chance that she was mistaken, that Regina's whimsical heart really _had_ gotten away from her, well . . .

There were other measures to be taken.

Cora slipped off a black silk glove and extended her hand, summoning the discarded rose petals until they danced about her in the cool night air like a cluster of moths around an open flame. One by one, she plucked only the finest from the bunch—nary a furled tip or discoloration—and murmured a binding spell, securing them in perfect formation to a lengthy stem with a single but very large thorn.

_She loves me,_

_she loves me,_

_she loves me._

By the time her chant ended, she had produced a fuller, more exquisite rose than any she could hope to coax from the tedious earth. Almost.

Barely flinching, she pricked the pad of her index finger on the thorn, held it inches above the flower, and squeezed with her thumb, enchanting each blood droplet that fell (_forever mine . . . mine. . . mine. . ._). The entire collection of petals blushed deep crimson and sealed itself with a satin finish. Not a speck of white remained.

She cupped her hand under the blossom and, with a sly look at the bush she had pilfered it from, bent to kiss its fragrant head. When its paler, less opulent sisters quivered and held their tongues, Cora smiled to herself and strolled away.

xXxXx

"Blast!"

Regina slapped the charcoal stick into the gutter of her leather-bound art book and sat back heavily in her chair, arms crossed. Suddenly paranoid, she cast a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one stood behind her. Finding the room empty, she faced her small writing desk once again and repeated the curse under her breath.

She was supposed to be studying her history tome. But somewhere around the third or fourth ogre war, she had ended up reading the same sentence over and over for nearly five minutes without comprehending a word of it. To be fair, she did try switching to _Realms and Religions _for a while instead, but if she had to read about yet another virgin sacrifice today, she was going to offer herself up as one just to be done with the whole rotten business. Her solemn vow to resume _Into the Woods: A History_ after ten minutes of sketching had been sincere. Fifteen minutes, at most. Now, over an hour later, she still didn't have a thesis for her report on child soldiers—specifically the girls—and she had wasted three perfectly good sheets of parchment on a single still life.

After horses, flowers were normally her best subject. During holidays from school, she sometimes spent entire afternoons in the garden, recreating her mother's handiwork in oils and canvas. It earned her many a stern lecture from Cora, who would not have a daughter that wiled her life away on such a useless endeavor as art (though a few of her more successful pieces were still prominently displayed in the sitting room of their estate). Calla lilies were the most difficult, with their elegant outer robes and the naked little queen who peeked from inside, forever on the verge of exposure; roses were relatively easy in comparison, modest even, with voluminous petticoats to protect their honor.

This rose was different.

It had been resting beside her head on the pillow this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary there—she couldn't recall a day in sixteen years when her mother hadn't kept fresh flowers in the house, although they were usually in a vase and not tucked into bed with her unannounced like that intruder who had ransacked the Bhaers' residence last winter and slept in all their beds. But the moment she lifted it from repose, its stem poker-straight and almost _too_ green, she had instinctively known this was no average red rose. She couldn't say why, exactly, other than its abnormal size and vivid hue. Something in its structure eluded her—stirred her—and made it difficult to look away. She thought the appropriate word might be _sensual_.

Sighing lightly, she leafed back through the overturned pages of her art book and frowned at the smudged renderings, each more inadequate than the next. Still unable to identify the problem, she continued perusing past several blank pages until she reached the loose parchments hidden away between the last sheet and the leather binding. Her heart gave a funny little kick. She should have burned these drawings the moment they were completed, she knew that. Better yet, she shouldn't have drawn them at all. But you try watching the new stable hand pitch hay, his chestnut hair gleaming in the noonday sun and his chiseled jaw set like stone, and see if you can resist the temptation. You just try it.

_Daniel. _It was the first word he had ever spoken to her. She called him "boy" and told him to wipe the sweat from his brow so the sheen wouldn't blind her (truthfully, she just wanted a better look at his hands; to commit all parts of him to memory for later reference), and he had gone on thrusting his pitchfork, lobbing tufts of hay over one shoulder, and said, "Daniel. My name is Daniel." He ignored her when she repeated the order with his name affixed, but she was almost certain he had begun hefting larger scoops and sending them aloft with extra bravado. She sauntered over, tweaked a piece of straw from his hair, her fingers grazing thick, damp locks, and informed him while walking away that Rocinante liked extra hay in his stall. Afterwards, the scoundrel made a show of dabbing his forehead generously with his sleeve and ducking into subservient posture whenever she approached. And on the day she presented him a frilly white handkerchief with the letter "R" embroidered in one corner, he threw his head back and laughed to beat the devil—a big open sound that fascinated Regina, who had never heard a man, or anyone else for that matter, laugh so freely. Since then, he posed for her in whichever manner she pleased, and she had become quite adept at capturing his shape with the nib of her ever-ready charcoal. Or at least most of him.

"Why have you given me no face?" he asked, a bit perplexed, when she finally allowed him to thumb through her burgeoning portfolio.

"And spoil my perfectly good sketches?" she replied. Her innocent smile twitched at the corners as she watched realization dawn on handsome features.

He had rescued her from further explanation by nicking the charcoal from her hand, as swift as a fox snaring lake trout, and sending her shrieking into the nearest empty stall, where she found herself cornered while her nose was blackened to soot. His lips were close enough to kiss when he lowered the marker, their panting laughter a visible cloud that mingled in the air between them. Gods, she had come so close. She could still smell his rugged scent, like saddle leather and wheatgrass and pipe tobacco. The exhilarating, terrifying moment had passed when she snatched back her charcoal, scrawled a dark line down the middle of Daniel's face, and fled in a whirlwind of giggles and crinoline.

Later that evening, long after feigning sleep for her mother's nightly bed check, she did indeed feed most of her artwork to the flames. But these few—stashed away in the cuff that overlapped the art book's hard back cover—these she couldn't part with: a hand casually resting on a jaunty hip; whiskers, so sparse and baby-fine they almost didn't count as such, on a vaguely feminine cheekbone; beads of perspiration collecting like morning dew along a dense hairline.

As her eyes traveled the parchment, gliding over a trouser leg that failed to disguise the well-toned calf beneath, she absentmindedly stroked the rosebud in front of her. Its head craned out from the vase she had placed it in, lolling above the pages as if it too were captivated by the stable boy and all his delightful symmetry. She smiled at the thought and let her fingers trail down the thick stem, wondering what it would be like to—

"Ouch!"

Regina jerked her hand away and stared at the bright pearl of blood on her fingertip. She cast an injured little look at the flower, feeling betrayed. For just a moment, its thorn (did they normally sparkle so?) seemed to turn up at her in a fang-sharp grin. Then it was gone, and Regina was left wincing at her stung middle finger. She brought it to her mouth reflexively, but a second before it reached her tongue she had an idea. Flipping back to the front of her book, she selected the rose sketch she was least dissatisfied with and carefully began swirling the blood into its shaded parchment petals. She used her fingertip as skillfully as a paintbrush, milking out a few more red drops when the strokes became faded. She managed to fill in the entire blossom this way before running dry.

Leaning back in her chair again, she gazed down at her desk in mild astonishment. On its surface was a near perfect replica of the rose in the vase, fresh new coat glistening with every bit as much luster as the original. (_Pulsating._ Maybe that was the word . . .)

"How curious," she murmured, extending her hand towards the real rose with slight trepidation, fingers pausing a hairsbreadth from the petals.

"What I find curious, is that you don't appear to be studying at all," said a still, cool voice.

In the split-second before her rational mind took over, Regina was convinced the rose had been the one who spoke. And then the very air itself twanged as if someone had struck a tuning fork next to her ear, making the hair on her arms and in back of her neck go stiff. She fought to keep her composure, but both hands quaked badly as she turned to face her mother. Clasping them in her lap, she said in a high, pinched voice that was meant to sound natural, "Oh, hello, Mother. I didn't hear you knock."

_Because you never do_.

Immediately, she banished the thought and dropped her eyes to the floor, certain her impudence would be detected on sight. To her surprise, Cora's once spotless white leather boots were coated with rings of dirt at the heel and a thin, dry line of muck on each side. Odd, since it had rained the previous afternoon but not this morning. Something about that threadlike trace of soil frightened Regina more than she could possibly say. But there was no opportunity to figure out why, because she glanced up to find her mother standing directly overhead. Cora had moved forward without a sound, as if her feet never even touched the floor. The air vibrated a second time.

"Perhaps you weren't listening," returned Cora, subtle accusation in her tone. But she balanced two gloved fingers under her daughter's chin, tilting it upwards until Regina lifted in the chair, and offered a fond smile. "Head in the clouds, as usual."

Regina reciprocated the smile with some uncertainty, still trying to determine her mother's mood before replying. She had learned quite young to adjust her own behavior to whatever best fit Cora's current state, but lately it had become increasingly difficult to follow along—whether that was caused by a shift in her mother's willingness to cooperate or her own, she did not know. More and more often, Regina fretted about the answer till her stomach ached and her temples throbbed.

"I suppose," she said guardedly. With her head tipped back so far, she struggled to swallow. She gulped down too hard, self-conscious of the loud noise her throat made in the otherwise silent room. Not the most ladylike sound in the world, to be sure.

Her mother held her chin up a few seconds longer, then released it and cupped the base of her skull with the same hand. It descended slowly over the flowing sable waves at Regina's back; moved up again; repeated the motion in long, continuous strokes. Instead of relaxing into the touch, Regina felt even more on edge, her eyes fixating on the other hand buried up to the elbow inside Cora's shawl. She preferred her mother's hands to be visible at all times.

"What is all this?" Cora asked, nodding to the art supplies on the desk.

"Oh, it's . . . it's nothing." Regina had trouble swallowing again. Her heart seemed to be lodged in her throat, tongue suddenly thicker and cotton-dry. "Just a bit of nonsense, really. I'll put it away—"

Cora reached over and intercepted the art book as calmly as if she were removing dinner plates from a vacant table (not that she ever would). The history tome Regina had swooped up in her clutches landed solidly on the empty spot a moment too late. She cringed at its heavy, graceless thunk. _Deadened_, she thought, inexplicably.

"I'm sorry, Mother." Her words spilled together in an overeager rush as she watched Cora study the sanguine flower on the front page, tapered thumb pinning it in place. The rest of her mother's fingers—on _that_ hand—were splayed at the back cover, leaving impressions in the leather where they curved inward like silken black talons. "I know I ought to have been reading, but my eyes were going crossed. I decided to take a short break, and then I got distracted by the rose you brought me. It's _so_ lovely . . ."

Cora closed the book but kept it clasped tight against her chest with one arm. She looked down her nose for a moment, treacherously beautiful despite a blank expression. The curly tendrils of hair framing her face trembled, though not a draft stirred in the room. "Don't be silly, darling. You needn't apologize. I think your sketches are wonderful, you know that."

Regina knew no such thing. But she wanted to believe it (surely her mother's approval had to be more than just a hollow recitation, even if that's how it sounded?), so she let gratitude wash over her, sweeping suspicion away in the tide. Her smile warmed considerably. "Thank you," she said, blinking as her eyes misted without warning. "For the rose as well. How ever did you grow something so splendid?"

"I have my ways," Cora said, returning the drawings to the desktop. And then, finally, her other hand emerged from inside the shawl—empty. She gave a mischievous wiggle of her fingers, tapped her daughter lightly on the end of the nose, and flourished the opposite hand behind Regina's ear. When it reappeared, a tiny copper horse stood balanced on the flat of her palm. "How else would I have ended up with such a splendid young daughter?"

"Oh," Regina breathed, delighted in spite of herself. Sleight of hand was for gullible children at festivals, and her mother's talent for it could be particularly unsettling, but it _had_ been an awfully clever trick. It also didn't hurt that the trinket looked just like Rocinante, if he were the perfect size for a fairy to saddle. Grinning widely, she reached out, thought better of it, peered up at her mother with tenuous hope. "For me?"

"Of course." Cora chuckled, offering an affectionate pat on the cheek.

Treasure in hand, Regina dropped her guard completely and threw both arms around her mother's waist. She was rewarded with another laugh, another caress. And when they parted from the fierce little hug, her mother bent forward, cradled her face gently in either palm, and drew her into the softest, sweetest kiss she had ever tasted. It left her a bit breathless, and she ducked her head when it ended, hiding her burning cheeks at Cora's midsection. Beneath the shawl, something solid and bulbous clinked like glass on metal. Regina didn't notice at first, her attention on the copper horse and her mother's intoxicating perfume. Cora mixed the fragrance herself with extracts from her own garden. Many of the ingredients were easy to recognize, such as the olive oil and lavender. There was even a faint woodsy aroma that conjured images of swaying boughs and endless verdancy. But underneath it all lay a mildly unpleasant smell Regina had never been able to identify. Dark, winged, scavenging. It reminded her of . . . of . . . ?

"And now, dear heart, I need something from you." As Cora spoke, she produced another item from inside her shawl with the same cunning as the first.

Just before looking up, Regina had a premonition so strong it made her scalp tingle: whatever that clinking noise had been, she wasn't going to like it.

She was right.

Cora held up the glass vial by its slender neck, switching the spherical bottom to and fro like a pendulum. At least this one was fairly small. The bigger ones frightened Regina most, her imagination about what they fitted running away with her. For as long as she could recall, her mother had been collecting pieces of her and storing them in those vials, to be used as bases in potion making. (Once and only once, she had ventured a peek into Cora's spellbook and seen the word "virgin" featured even more predominantly than in _Realms and Religions_.) There was an entire wall of shelves in the vault below the fireplace devoted just to her: baby teeth that resembled kernels of white hominy and rattled like the toy they had cut on, even when you didn't shake them; curlicues of fine black hair held together by string—some with the roots still attached, some not; flaky, mottled skin peeled whole from long-forgotten wounds—some accidental, some not; a shriveled reddish-brown cord which lay coiled at the bottom of its container like an ancient dead snake.

Most of the time it didn't hurt. Finger and toenails were the easiest and most common contribution, and she didn't mind those much, as long as she controlled the clippers. But once, while Regina's cheeks were bulging with the strawberry tart that had been a birthday surprise, her mother had leaned across the dinner table without a word and pulled an eyelash straight from the lid. Regina spent the first few days of her seventh year wiping a persistent leak at the corner of her garishly inflamed eye. And then there had been the time Cora brought her the largest flask yet, in place of a chamber pot. That had been more humiliating than painful, although the distinction between the two was slim, if you asked Regina. There were other times, other bodily fluids, but the memories were buried deep and she didn't care to unearth them.

Sometimes she awoke to a strong scent lingering in her room, a sickly sweet lavender and lush and underneath-it-all smell (_carrion_?), and she knew for certain her mother had paid another visit. Stolen another part of her, collected another tithe. One day all that remained of Regina would be what was enshrined in the vault beneath her feet.

And suddenly, she knew exactly what the other smell was—_Death_. Or at least the harbinger of it. Cora had the ability to communicate with ravens; it stood to reason she would carry a bit of their essence around with her. Yes . . . and if Cora was the raven, did that not make Regina the decayed and bloating corpse she intended to pick clean? Certainly it must.

"What is it you wish from me this time, Mother?" Regina asked, trying to sound braver than she felt. She kept her shoulders squared, but leaned away from the vial until her back collided with the desk. "My tears? My _blood_?"

"Oh, nothing as extravagant as that." A flash in Cora's eyes belied her light tone. Her smile tightened almost imperceptibly. "I assure you, it won't be painful. In fact, quite the opposite."

Regina's stomach turned as she gazed up into the merciless face above, unable to pry her eyes from that hard little line between red, red lips. The connotation in the words they had spoken made her feel like she might be sick. Forgetting herself entirely, she began to gnaw at her thumbnail, working to tear off a sliver she could grind with her back teeth. It was a deplorable habit she had acquired somewhere in childhood and couldn't seem to break, no matter how many slaps she received on the hand. Funny how it only appeared in her mother's presence.

The bitter charcoal taste that flooded her mouth was oddly soothing. It took her mind off the other sensations pressing up against the membrane of her consciousness, struggling to be birthed into fully realized, undeniable thought. She managed to loosen some skin before having her hand swatted away. She held the tiny fleck defiantly on her tongue for a moment, then swallowed it down where even her mother couldn't get at it. "I'm in no mood," she said, tossing out one of Cora's favorite phrases on impulse. Her heart pounded erratically as she turned to face her desk, but she kept a steady posture and tone. "Now, if you'll please leave me, I should get back to my studies."

When she reached for her art book, fingers itching to hide it from view, her mother's hand shot forward and separated the covers without touching them. A purple gust fanned through the pages, bypassing the roses and every blank sheet thereafter. Regina held her breath as the last overturned with a slow and agonizing crinkle, drifting into place atop the rest. _And that, dear boy, is why I've given you no face_, she thought, casting a doleful look at the sketch of Daniel now on open display. It was the one she had been musing over when the thorn pricked her finger—the stable boy's frame from the shoulders down, exuding easy confidence and grace as he leaned against her apple tree. Nothing too telling or sordid, other than the artist's obvious appreciation for a fine physique. She doubted her mother would recognize the build or the modest clothes it wore (Cora cared only for the trappings of nobility). Still, she let her breath out in a heavy whoosh, shoulders sagging in defeat.

"And is this what you call studying?" Cora asked, stabbing a finger to the parchment.

"How did you—" Regina stopped herself from finishing the foolish question. It was never a matter of _how_ with her mother, it was _why_ and _when_. Why profess to love Regina one minute, then treat her so harshly the next? When would it ever end? She bit into her tongue until she tasted blood, holding the questions inside as she always had. As she probably always would.

"I've told you already, dear, I have my ways." With a small gesture, Cora beckoned to the rose in the vase. It materialized in her waiting palm, obedient as a trained pet. She brought the blossom to her nose, a tender expression on her face as it lingered there, infusing her creamy complexion with a pinkish glow. She trailed it lower to rest against the curve of her neck. Head tilted just so, it appeared as if she were listening while the rose whispered secrets in her ear. But she must not have liked what she heard; a moment later, her features hardened to stone and she suddenly whapped the rose down on the parchment. "Who is this? Tell me."

Regina glared at the flower, wanting to rip it apart petal by petal. Now she understood what made it so alluring: an enchantment of some sort. _The damn thing had been spying on her this entire time! _It didn't surprise her, not really and truly. She often got the sense she was being watched whenever she set foot into her mother's garden. Sometimes the ground itself seemed to cling to her, as if it wanted to absorb her into the soil like summer rain. Blessedly, she had never taken Daniel there. And she wasn't given to girlish tendencies such as gossiping with nature about the boys she liked. No, she thought with a twinge of savage glee, it wasn't possible for those traitorous little fiends to tell all her secrets. She had some ways of her own too.

"I have no idea what you mean," she said.

"Don't you lie to me—"

"I'm not lying." Regina schooled her expression into wide-eyed innocence. "It's just that I can't possibly explain who that is, because it isn't anyone. I made him up. He's nothing more than a fanciful notion."

Cora's eyes narrowed, boring into Regina with a shrewdness that left her feeling exposed. "There is nothing more dangerous than a foolish girl and her fanciful notions. And I've sacrificed far too much to stand by and let you ruin yourself with this one." Cora stepped back, heels clicking briskly against the stone flooring. She used the rose to indicate the space in front of her, like a headmistress brandishing a pointer. "On your feet."

"What?" Regina blinked, disbelieving. "Ruin myself? That's absurd. I haven't even— I've never—" She lifted her hands in dismay, uncertain how to elaborate. She had grown uncomfortably warm. Heat prickled at the skin beneath her dress, crept up her neck, spilled into her cheeks.

(Those memories were straining to get out again:

When she was a little girl, she had once watched a group of gypsy children playing hide and seek in the billowing fabric hanging on their mother's clothesline. She had longed to join in, but of course been forbidden. Now, her thoughts—the ones too awful to be given form—were playing the same elusive game, their silhouettes looming just beyond the veil, daring her to find them . . .)

"And this will ensure that you don't," Cora said, clasping the vial so tightly in her fist it was a wonder it didn't crack. She hadn't stopped pointing that damn rose. "Up."

"Mother, I will not!" Regina stamped her foot under the desk for emphasis, no longer caring how childish she might seem. Her breathing had gone ragged, chest heaving. She could feel the veil being drawn aside, dark shadows seeping around the corner, a black, sucking oil pouring into her soul.

"On your feet, girl," Cora demanded. She thrust forth her hand—rose and all—a violet aura crackling in the air around it. The magic flowed out of her palm and slithered toward Regina with frightening speed, wrapping itself around her in a thick, ropey coil. She tried grabbing onto the sides of her desk, but came away with only splinters as she was tugged upright so violently her chair turned over backwards. Her body railed against the force invading it, to no avail. It was like being gutted and led around by handfuls of your own intestines. Luckily, her mother had it down to an art, and with another rough jerk that flipped Regina's insides and set her senses whirling, they were face to face. An abrupt release snapped her teeth together and threw her balance off kilter as both feet hit the floor.

"There, now." Cora put out a steadying hand, the other still shimmering purple. The color of royalty. "Be a good girl and remove your dress. Or shall I do it for you?"

Regina struggled to make sense of the command, mind reeling as she gradually regained control over her quivering limbs. She teetered for a moment, eyes locking on the chamber door. Fleeing would be useless, but perhaps if she shouted for her father . . . . No. He couldn't help her. The most he had ever done was leave the room to afford her some privacy for these degradations. He loved her, she knew that. But he loved his own wellbeing more. Standing there with Cora's impassive face inches from hers, godlike in its cool indifference to suffering, she couldn't really blame him.

"I'll do it myself," she whispered, hating how small and terrified her voice sounded. It proved to be as foolhardy a claim as all the rest she had made in the past few minutes. Her fingers fumbled at the ruched satin alongside her bodice, unable to separate buttons from holes. She glanced pleadingly at her mother, who was more than happy to oblige. To Regina's surprise (or perhaps not so surprising at all), Cora tucked the vial back inside her shawl and undid the buttons one at time with her fingers, instead of relying on magic. Her eyes, brown and depthless as garden soil, stayed focused on Regina's while she worked. Her hands were perpetually cold, despite the gloves she always wore. Regina could feel them like chunks of winter ice against her torso, even before the first layer of clothing fell away.

And with each subsequent layer that was stripped from her body, the memories returned in equally piecemeal fashion: a roving touch, frigid even beneath the warm bath water, exploring her in places she had never thought to explore herself; petal-shaped stains on a thigh or inner wrist or collarbone, left there by red, red lips; the give of a featherbed when lavender-scented weight slipped beneath the covers; her mother's gaze fixated on her with open hunger, just like now.

She watched the delicate chemise as it slid from her shoulders and pooled at her ankles, mind and body bared in their entirety, and somehow felt more whole than she had moments ago. They might not be right, they might not be sane, but the memories were a thing that belonged to her. Stolen pieces she had reclaimed. And maybe that was victory enough. Taking the hand offered her, she discarded her slippers and stepped from the pile of garments with a regal air. Even barefoot, she was almost taller than her mother.

An approving smile graced Cora's lips as she circled Regina at a leisurely pace. Her boots gave a smart little tap with every step. "Lovely," she murmured, twirling the rose by its stem between her thumb and forefinger. "Absolutely lovely." She paused to graze the blossom along the back of one thigh, petals ghosting over flesh and leaving goose bumps in their wake.

Regina fought hard to maintain control, but the rose's enchantment was stronger than she had realized. The moment it made contact with her skin, she became hyperaware of every sensation, her body suddenly alive and teeming. (_Pulsating_.) She felt as sensitive as a raw nerve, but it wasn't pain that coursed through her, igniting the blood in her veins and thrumming in time with her heartbeat. No, not pain at all. It should have been shameful, she knew, that delicious thrill in her belly when the rose came down on her backside like a riding crop; she just couldn't bring herself to care, nor even to flinch away in disgust. She caught sight of her mother's reflection in the large looking-glass by the bed, and wanted nothing more than to see its heated expression trained directly on her. Every previous ounce of rebellion had been replaced by the intense _need_ for satisfaction—whether given or received.

When the rose glided up her relaxed spine, she immediately tightened her stomach and threw back her shoulders. Then she shook out her dark locks, letting them cascade behind her in a show of pure vanity. According to Regina's friends, her hair was her best feature. She sometimes noticed Cora staring at it with an odd look that might actually pass for admiration. Indeed, it now earned her an appreciative hum, which came from deep within her mother's throat and vibrated in Regina's eardrums until she shivered. The clack of heels against stone was getting to be too much, making her squirm where she stood. Each one sent a tiny jolt of pleasure straight to her groin.

"My, so impatient," Cora said with a light laugh. But she sidled around to face Regina, trailing the flower from hip to hip, along a stretch of abdomen, and doubling back in a loop to the overlooked belly button. She dusted into the shallow dip as if collecting powder with a rouge brush, and grinned widely at the sharp gasp it elicited. Focusing the enchanted bud on that area for a while, she continued drawing slow and maddening circles.

"Mother," was all Regina managed to rasp out, the plea dying on her lips as the petals curved upwards in a steep arc, tracing idle patterns across her breasts. Her nipples, unbearably taut and so pronounced she normally would have covered them in embarrassment, received a single butterfly stroke apiece. The ache that filled her chest nearly crumpled her to the floor. She released a soft moan, a low and wanton sound she had never heard herself make before, and gripped her mother's icy wrist in both hands, knees threatening to give at any moment.

Sweeping through the valley between Regina's breasts, the rose tracked its way to the base of her throat, swirling against the little notch there, and on up to rest beneath her chin. Its fragrant breath mingled with Cora's as she leaned in, warm mouth a stark contrast to chill skin, and whispered, "Are you ready, sweet girl?"

Regina whimpered something incoherent, and nodded. Nothing existed beyond this bedchamber, this exact time and space with a body of flame and frost pressed against hers—no lurking garden that waited to consume virgin flesh, no father who turned a blind eye, and certainly no stable boy. Only this.

"First, answer me true," Cora said, her voice an indistinct purr as she dotted kisses to Regina's neck. Afterwards, there would be an entire chain of them, like a ruby-red choker worn tight against the skin. She was careful not to leave any marks that couldn't be washed away, but gave into temptation the very next second and nipped gently at a delicate earlobe. Cora Mills was never one to deny herself a tender morsel. "Whose are you?"

"Yours," Regina said automatically. No thought in advance, as natural as breathing.

(_Yours . . . yours . . . gods above, yours . . ._)

Cora rewarded her with another throaty hum of agreement, tickling Regina's inner ear and every other part of her, and slipped off one long black glove. It landed in an inky puddle next to Regina's feet. Never in sixteen years had she seen her mother intentionally discard a glove on the floor. Her breath caught with an audible click, her entire body buzzing in anticipation. No, lust—that was the word. She had lost track of the rose at some point, but it didn't matter anymore: her mother's palm was splayed against her lower abdomen, its coldness penetrating her blazing skin. She cried out in protest and then, as Cora's fingers found the silky warmth pooling between her legs, in pleasure.

For a moment, she worried her mother might take what she needed and go; but it was a fleeting concern, half-realized and soon forgotten in a matter of a few steady strokes. If her heightened senses during the rose's odyssey had been powerful, they were nothing compared to what she felt from this touch. She opened her mouth to encourage, to beg, but couldn't form the words for either. Her eyes kept drifting out of focus, colorful flashes exploding behind her vision (they weren't exactly flashes though, were they? More like endless lavender fields; acres of blue-violet spruce; yards of the finest purple velvet, fit for a queen . . .), so she shut them and concentrated on feeling, alone.

Cora was inside her now, fingers as adept at their current task as they were at mixing potions. They measured Regina out, ground her down to size, let her simmer awhile. There was little else she could do but drop her head onto Cora's shoulder, lost in the gentle, maternal sounds of the voice that called her "my sweet girl" over and over. She still had hold of her mother's wrist, using it for support, legs trembling like a newborn calf. She managed to stay upright a few moments more, until the firm, circular motion of her mother's thumb sent her barreling to the edge.

An arm went around her waist, catching her just as both knees buckled. Dimly, she realized the rose petals must have been torn away from her skin during the fall—she could no longer hear the blood rushing in her veins, nor taste Cora's nectary words on her own tongue. But the other stimulation, the one that didn't owe its strength to any magical properties, had yet to lose its effect. Regina rolled her hips, drawing out the climax for as long as she could, and the fact that she wasn't denied that last bit of indulgence made it all the more euphoric. She felt herself being eased to the floor, light as a feather ebbing on the breeze, and her heart swelled with overwhelming gratitude. How much her mother must love her, to be so generous, to share such intimacy. Surely no other daughter had ever been cherished more.

She let go when Cora's wrist rotated in her grip, instead clutching at fistfuls of the satin skirt she knelt before with all the conviction of a penitent. Resting her cheek against her mother's thigh, panting softly through parted lips, she waited. Waited for the caressing hand in her hair, the pet names meant for her ears only; waited for her chin to be lifted, a ruby kiss bestowed (not even her father was granted many of those). When none of it happened, she gazed up through blurry vision and blinked away the tears she hadn't known where there until now.

Cora held the vial in the same hand as the rose. With the other, she wiped her slickened fingers across its glass mouth, gathering every last drop of arousal on the brim. She watched its progress intently, never taking her eyes off the bottle's slender gullet until it was sufficiently coated in clear, musky fluid. And when she did look down, she seemed to have forgotten her daughter had been there the whole time. She studied Regina for a moment, taking in the flush complexion, the pert breasts still heaving from exertion, the thatch of wiry pubic hair, and said in an impassive tone, "Fetch me my glove, won't you, dear?"

Dazed, Regina patted the floor blindly at first, then finally had to glance around to find the glove. She handed it over without a word, feeling dumb as a mute. Perhaps if she didn't speak, the spell would not be broken. Perhaps that warmth would return to her mother's voice . . .

"Look at this mess." Cora tsked her tongue as she accepted the glove and caught Regina's hand in mid-retreat. She turned it over to examine the charcoal smudges on each finger and black crescents below each nail. The middle one still had a thin dash of blood trapped beneath the surface, like an interrupted sentence. "Disgraceful. Really, Regina, you are a well-bred young woman, not a vagabond peddling her wares." She suspended the offensive paw out in front of her, then released it with a disgusted sigh and stepped over the deflated dress underfoot. "Clean yourself up," she said, and made a brief gesture to the writing desk, "along with the rest of this nonsense. And don't let me ever find you neglecting your studies again.

"In fact . . ." She paused halfway out the chamber door and slit her eyes at Regina, as if she were a magistrate determining what to do with a hopeless miscreant. "I think it best you remain here for the evening. No supper unless you've completed your assignments."

And with that, she swept out of the room, in possession of rose, glove, and another trophy for her wall. Regina didn't have to see the binding spell performed to know the door had sealed upon exit (although the violet mist that sneezed from the hinges was a fair indicator). She stared at its blank oaken surface for such a long time it became distorted and meaningless. Not a solid object at all, but a gray void like the world outside and Regina inside. Her toes had gone numb from sitting on her heels—she had _knelt_ to that woman—but it was the wetness leaking onto the soles of her feet that finally made movement a necessity. She shifted onto her bare bottom and took inventory of her surroundings. Her blue dress, once favored for its robin's egg hue, lay in the middle of the floor, its skirt mushrooming around the heap of plain white undergarments. The copper horse rested on its side next to the desk where she must have dropped it when Cora yanked her from the chair. Her art book was still open to the faceless sketch of Daniel, his broad shoulders slanted against the trunk of her apple tree. The vase stood empty a few inches away. Cursed mementos of a cursed existence.

She picked herself up slowly, laboriously, fingernails scritching on the stone tiling. _One day they'll be in a jar anyway_, she thought, gazing down at the frayed tips while propped on all fours. _Right next to my— _With a mighty shove, she forced herself upright and listed dangerously to and fro before finding her balance. An unfortunate side effect of having pure magic pumped into your system, that. Sometimes she woke up the morning after one of Cora's nighttime visits and staggered out of bed like a drunkard. (But how was it possible to only just remember such a thing? How could a memory that didn't exist an hour ago now be more vivid than the gray void of her bedchamber?)

Hollow-eyed and unblinking, she set about tidying up her clothes. She considered burning them, but Cora would notice if any garments went missing, so she hung her dress in the wardrobe and wadded the underthings in a drawer where she wouldn't have to see them until they had been laundered. Securing her hair with a ribbon, she wiped the lip stain off her neck and ran a cloth between her legs at the washbasin. She would tend to her filthy hands later, once she had put away the charcoal and sketches. After donning her simplest brown frock, its one redeeming quality a pretty crosshatching of laces up the front, she went over to retrieve the copper horse with which she had been bought.

"Foolish girls and fanciful notions," she said to the creature, offering it a faint little smile. "Mother's love and heart's devotion . . ."

Something about the weight of the figurine in her hand, or maybe the weight of the rhyme she had conjured, snapped Regina in two. But she wouldn't cry. Oh no, she would not do that. Instead, she grabbed the charcoal stick from its notch inside the art book and began to scribble out a single word on the parchment pages, a word she wanted to scream at her barricaded door until it blasted off the hinges. A word she wanted to bellow into the vault under the fireplace until every vial shattered in a hailstorm of glass and thundering heartbeats. A word—nay, a curse, a _damnation_—she wanted to throw her chamber windows wide and shout out for all the cold gray world to hear. Maybe they would come with torches and axes and raze this whole godforsaken prison to the ground, with her inside it. That was just fine, as long as they got that serpent in the vault while they were at it.

She worked like one possessed, scratching out the word in thick dark lines from front to back on every page, including the rose sketches and her handsome stable boy. When she ran out of room in the book, she darted over to the looking-glass, which was too pristine to resist, and began scrawling in huge capital letters across its pane. She would have started in on the walls next if she hadn't looked down to an empty hand, the charcoal now nothing more than a layer of soot on her palm. Reaching for a clear spot overhead, she used the residue to smear out her missive one final time on the mirror.

Breath coming in harsh, hitching gasps, she stood back to observe the silent screams she had brought to life in ugly bold black, the color of Cora's heart:

**WITCH**

When she caught a glimpse of the broken child reflected back at her, she raised its toy horse high into the air, swung her arm in a brutal arc, and smashed the dirty glass. She smashed that little girl to pieces.

xXxXx

Cora practically clapped her hands together in delight as she watched the liquid-filled vial begin to bubble and change color. Each ingredient was translucent on its own, but bonded together by magic they were turning a frail shade of blue. Suddenly, the whole potion seemed to doubt itself and blushed pinker than bonnet lace. And after a glorious fizzling that permeated the vault with a somewhat familiar scent (lilac, was it?), it finally settled on vibrant topaz. Most unusual.

Then again, nothing about her encounter with Regina had gone quite according to plan. Cora had known she would emerge with the substance now percolating in the vial, one way or another—she just hadn't foreseen its method of retrieval. The rose's enchantment was more powerful than she could have hoped. Seduction spells frequently called for blood, as did many of the others in her book, but seldom did it behave as such an aphrodisiac. She was almost certain she had seen the rose petals glow crimson when they first brushed against Regina's skin. It had been so tempting to remove her gloves right then and hold the stem in her bare hands, just to get a taste of what her daughter was experiencing, but it wouldn't do to lose herself in the moment.

Still . . .

The sight of olive-toned flesh, so ripe and vulnerable; the sweet young curves of womanhood, still girlishly dimpled in places; the deep and luxuriant moans that were anything but childlike . . . it had been impossible for Cora's own body _not_ to react. Her undergarments were soaked through in a way they had not been since her days as Rumplestiltskin's apprentice, his lean and agile frame forked snugly behind her at the spinning wheel.

Of course she didn't relish these sessions with her daughter as she had with her master. She preferred Regina as chaste as any sixteen-year-old girl could be. But sixteen-year-old girls also provided some of the most potent serums to be found. Evidence of that was catalogued on the nearest wall in row upon row of glittering glass. Typically she allowed Regina the option of bottling items herself—the girl had come of age, and it only seemed fair. But guidance was sometimes required for the more delicate extractions, the ones Regina tended to balk at most, and that made her receptiveness this time, her eager pliancy beneath Cora's hand, all the more surprising. And all the more worrisome.

The potion would remedy that. A few drops during afternoon tea tomorrow, or perhaps delivered this evening via good-night kiss, and any predicament Regina's eagerness might get her into would be ended before it began. No woman ever became queen with a bastard child on her hip, after all. When the time was right (preferably her daughter's wedding night), Cora would lift the curse and welcome each and every grandchild with open arms. Likewise, no woman was a successful queen who did not bear her husband at least one heir to his throne.

_Tomorrow_, she decided, after some thought. Best to give the girl sufficient time to recover from one dosage of magic before administering a potion, on top of a mind-altering spell. Sifting through memories and deciding which to keep and which to discard was an intricate process. Practiced too often, the spell weakened and became hazardous to the recipient. Cora would have given it up years ago if her daughter didn't become so unmanageable without it. Even now, despite being warned not to, Regina was dillydallying with that art book of hers. Cora watched in the silver-plated hand mirror she had charmed—along with the looking-glass that was a gift for Regina's thirteenth birthday—to serve as a window into the upstairs bedchamber. As the girl viciously scrubbed at one page after the other, Cora sighed and shook her head. Sometimes she honestly did fear for her daughter's sanity.

"If she just learned to harness some of that emotion . . ." She looked down at the rose cradled against her like an infant, its blossom tucked in the crook of her elbow, stem crossing over her lap. Absently, she used her gloveless fingers to fondle the petals. They still gave off heat. "Think of what she could accomplish. Think of the power."

The rose said nothing, but Cora felt the accusation in its silence. Scowling, she pierced its blood red heart with her thumb and forefinger and plucked out one of the petals with a soft snap. She would not be judged by her own creation. Everything she did was in her daughter's best interest, which was more than anyone had ever done for Cora at that age. Her tactics were unsavory, perhaps, but someday Regina would understand and be grateful. As for now . . .

Cora rubbed the petal between her fingertips and gazed into the mirror, where Regina had unknowingly turned to face her. The child looked half mad, pupils blown so wide they engulfed the brown irises of her tearless eyes. The pretty mane had been pulled back severely from her face, emphasizing already striking features. That drab little gown, better suited to an asylum inmate than a future queen, heightened her beauty even more. She quivered like piano wire strung too tight as she stood there mouthing something—Cora squinted, not quite able to make it out—and defacing her looking-glass with that damned piece of charcoal.

Well . . . as for now, Cora no longer doubted who held her daughter's heart in hand. Nothing but true love inspired that much passion.

"Temper, temper, darling," she said lightly, lovingly, when Regina reared back and drove a fist into the glass with startling force, terminating their connection. Left staring at her own reflection in the hand mirror, Cora trailed the lone rose petal across smiling lips. If she closed her eyes, she could still smell Regina on its velvety skin, a brewing storm on the horizon.

xXxXx

The fact that the dirt was bleeding seemed logical. Hearts went on beating underground and gardens devoured souls with teeth as sharp as thorns. Rivers of blood beneath the soil were one of the least unnerving discoveries Regina had made all day. But when she finished packing the loose clumps of earth into place and slumped back heavily against the tree trunk, she realized the scarlet flow had oozed from her own two palms.

It wasn't any wonder. After shattering her mirror with the copper horse, she had gone on thrashing it, bare-knuckled, until not a single piece remained in the frame. Then she had gathered the shards in a pillowcase—also by hand, pressing the grit-sized flecks into the pads of her fingers when pinching them up didn't work—and risked life and limb descending the wall outside her chamber window on a ladder of bed sheets she kept for just such an occasion. She had known instinctually that burying her kill was the next step, and so spent half an hour or more digging a hole beneath her apple tree, clawing and paddling into the dirt like a dog with a dead rabbit in its mouth. Now, her hands and fingernails were caked in so much greasy red mud she could barely see the deep gashes underneath. At least they didn't hurt . . . yet.

Hellbent on proving her wrong, searing pain radiated from both hands and up the length of her arms when she tried to ball her fists. She gave a small cry and held them open and away from her body, hunching over in agony. And here she was again, groveling on her knees where she belonged.

Nuzzling into the cool grass, she rested her forearms on the ground beside her head, dirty appendages throbbing as they lay upturned in a supplicant pose. When the first dry sob escaped, there was no turning back. She wept until her eyes and throat were raw, until her chest ached for air then choked her with it; she wept tears of bitter defeat, feeling each more sharply than the glass she had buried. Cora had won. Cora always won.

By the time Regina sensed him standing over her, it was too late for pretending. She had known he would find out how pitifully broken she was sooner or later—she had been hoping for later.

"Regina? Are you all—"

She sat up perfectly straight, chin at a steep angle, and tossed her long ponytail. The queen on her throne. She must have looked as feral outside as she felt inside. Daniel froze with his palm outstretched, his concerned expression shifting to wide-eyed horror when he took in her appearance.

"Dear gods," he said, barely above a whisper. "What's happened to you?"

"That's none of your concern, boy," she replied, spitting out the nickname as if it were poison. Sometimes she still called him that just to hear him laugh or, if she spoke it fondly enough, to watch his ruddy cheeks grow even ruddier. This time she wanted it to sting. "Go away and leave me be."

"But you're hurt." He took a cautious step forward, arms spread in a non-threatening gesture, the same way Regina had seen him approach skittish horses. Stooping beside her on one knee, he gazed her over with troubled blue eyes and furrowed brow. "Let me help you."

When Daniel reached for her face, tentative fingers nearing her mouth, she shrank back and said, "What are you doing? Don't touch me!" Forgetting her injuries, she batted his hand away, then cringed and sucked air between her clenched teeth with a loud hiss. Gingerly, she lowered the backs of her hands against her lap, knuckles curled loosely into a nest of skirt, and glowered up at him in accusation.

"Your lip. It's bleeding. I'm sorry, I just wanted to . . . I shouldn't have . . ." His voice trailed off as he glanced into Regina's lap, a grim cloud passing over his features and darkening his eyes to piercing sapphire. "Gods. How did this happen?" he repeated in a low tone, leaning in as if he suspected the apple tree of eavesdropping on them.

Regina dabbed her tongue experimentally along the ridge of her bottom lip, grimacing at the bloody glaze she found there, warm and syrup-thick. So that was the awful taste in her mouth. Prodding at her top lip, she winced as her tongue landed on the source: a thin slice in the right corner, starting just below her nostril (vaguely, she recalled a scythelike sliver leaping out at her as she pummeled the looking-glass). It was shallow enough that it hadn't broken through to the other side, yet gushed fluid that seeped into her throat, burbling up when she exhaled. She turned and spat into the grass. No sense behaving like a lady when she probably closer resembled a ghoul who had been feasting on fresh entrails. The blood beneath her chin and down her neck had formed a crust, pulling at the skin when she turned her head; she noted without much disappointment that it covered the front of her dress as well. Pressing her sleeve to the wound, she gave a resigned sigh and muttered, "I broke my mirror."

(_seven years bad luck_)

Daniel waited for further explanation, and when none was offered, he nodded like he understood. "You shouldn't be out here alone. It will be dark soon and those cuts need to be dressed. Come, let's get you inside where it's warm."

"I can't." Regina shook her head, but this time she didn't tug away from the light grip at her elbow. Daniel's hands were always so gentle, despite a few calluses and the physical strength she had seen him display—readily, and wearing a rakish grin—on numerous occasions. She sometimes caught herself wondering, with fluttering belly and rosy cheeks, what it would be like to feel that work-roughened skin against hers, to be held in arms that seemed capable of keeping any monster at bay.

She looked down at the stable boy's big and sturdy hand curled around her elbow, caught a glimpse of the dirt embedded under his fingernails, and burst into tears.

"I can't go back in there, Daniel!" she said shrilly. And again, once she got started she couldn't stop: "She'll punish me. She already— She made me— I wasn't supposed to leave my room. If she finds out I climbed down here, there's no telling what she'll do. She's wicked."

"Your mother?" Daniel asked softly, though he didn't sound surprised.

"_Cora_," Regina growled.

"What of your father? Is there nothing he can—"

"My father?" Regina let out a cruel little laugh. She heard the edge of hysteria in her own voice and knew she would regret the words that followed, but no longer cared. Today was a day of burials and exhumations, of lying kisses and killing truths. What was one more body for the pile?

"My father is a sheep, but with half the intellect and none of the fortitude. He will do whatever she asks of him. If she demanded my head on a plate by suppertime, he would be inside polishing her knife and fork as we speak."

Daniel remained silent for a very, very long time. Finally, Regina peered at him sidelong to be sure he was still there, and not some figment of her imagination (her mind had been playing tricks on her for some time, it seemed). She expected to see him looking appalled by her hateful remarks about her parents. Instead, he was watching her with such sorrow, such sympathy for her plight, she thought he might begin to cry too. The idea made her stop and stare in wonder—and confusion. No one had ever cried on her behalf before.

"Have you no one else to turn to?" he asked, and swallowed thickly.

"I have none but you." Regina hadn't realized how true the statement was until she spoke it out loud. She exhaled heavily, feeling a crushing weight lift from her chest, and when Daniel's arm went around her, it was as though she had always belonged there, head on his shoulder, his chin resting in her hair. She could feel his heartbeat—a steady, powerful thrum—in the pulse at his throat, and longed to press her lips to it. One day, perhaps she would; but for now, she was content to be in this embrace, where a heartbeat sounded like sanctuary and not a thousand lost souls.

A few moments later, Daniel asked, "May I?" and held up a small white cloth. Upon closer inspection, Regina saw that it was the handkerchief she had given him for his brow—her initial embroidered in the corner. It hadn't been used. In fact, it looked cleaner and smelled better than it had on the day she gave it to him.

She nodded, but lowered her face when the hanky approached. Daniel nudged her chin up gently with a bent finger, his thumb fitting into the groove beneath her bottom lip. With equal tenderness, he used the kerchief to dry her tear-stained cheeks, smoothing the cloth along them as if they were made of the finest crystal. He held it to her nose while she blew, then folded it over and daubed the opposite side to her sore lip. His eyes flickered to hers, found her intent gaze upon him, and darted away just as quickly.

"This may scar. I think it needs stitching," he said, clearing his throat softly. He withdrew the kerchief, tucking it away in his pocket when Regina glanced at the gaudy stains on its once snow white surface, and took up the edge of his cloak to resume swabbing her neck and chin. "I can't do that myself, but I have a salve that should ease the pain."

Regina opened her mouth to decline. Cora had always tended to wounds with magic, even the ones inflicted on purpose, as long as it served her to do so; and it simply would not be acceptable for any daughter of Cora Mills' to go through life disfigured. But Regina didn't even want to speak _that _name, so she kept it to herself and tilted her head quizzically at Daniel, whose cheeks were coloring. "What is it?"

"The salve . . ." He flushed brighter, ducking his head boyishly. "It's for horses."

Regina's laugh was cut short by her smarting lip. She opted for a stiff and slightly crooked smile. "I don't mind," she said.

Grinning, Daniel got to his feet and started to help her up as well, careful of her mistreated hands. "I have some in my quarters. Not a far piece—" He glanced down in surprise when she wriggled from his grasp, planting both of her knees firmly back on the ground. Had she been capable, she would have sunk her fingers deep into the earth and clung tight.

How to explain to him that she couldn't leave this spot; that she had taken up root here just as securely as the apple tree behind them; that if she had to spend one more minute alone in a room with someone, even someone she trusted never to do her harm, her lungs would fill up with soil until she suffocated from within?

Her tongue was wooden and useless in her mouth.

"Why don't I go fetch it and bring it back here?" Daniel offered, tone wary as he eyed the soft purple twilight overhead. (He was right to be concerned by such a sly color.) "I won't be long."

Regina gave him another lopsided but grateful smile, and nodded. A second later, he had shrugged off his cloak and—before she had time to make a weak and obligatory protest they both knew she didn't really mean—draped it lightly around her shoulders. His warmth settled into her, spreading right down to the bone, until she wanted to curl up like a housecat on a sunny windowsill. She might have done just that if he weren't still standing over her, hand lingering near her hair.

"Thank you," she said, wanting to feel his fingers comb through the loose strands by her ear, praying they wouldn't.

Daniel eased his hand away and tipped his head. "M'lady."

And then Regina knew she loved him.

As he headed for the stables, clearing the meadow with long, loping strides, she huddled deeper into his cloak and breathed in his scent. She bunched the woolen fabric under her nose, not giving a tinker's damn about its threadbare condition, and buried her face in it, immersed in him and only him. By the time he returned, no more than ten or fifteen minutes later, she had almost rid herself entirely of that death and lavender smell . . . . Almost.

Daniel set to work with the same diligence he practiced in the stables. First, he placed the water bucket next to the tree, where it wouldn't tip over; then he ducked out of the satchel strap across his chest and began removing items from inside the bag, lining them up in the grass beside Regina: a pair of tweezers, a small tin that presumably held the salve, several long strips of linen wadded into a ball, and a few extra squares of clean cloth. From the latter pile, he peeled two cloths off the top, dunked and wrung them out in the bucket, and with a nod of assent from Regina, wiped at the blood he hadn't managed to get off her face and neck by kerchief or cloak. He hesitated at her lip, but the worst of it was not being able to meet his eye when she bared her throat. She half expected him to find a ruby-red choker branded onto her skin, a reminder of to whom she truly belonged.

But if he saw anything out of the ordinary, he didn't react. He merely set aside the soiled rags, uncapped the tin of salve, and scooped up a dollop with his pinky finger. "Keep still," he said, though he seemed to be the one about to hold his breath. His lips parted, folding around his teeth as he anticipated dotting the ointment to Regina's wound. Any other time, his solemn concentration would have made Regina giggle and tease. Now, it brought tears of fondness to her eyes, which were already watering from the sting of the salve. Daniel was so _good_. And after spending sixteen years with its antithesis, she found such genuine kindness more than a little daunting.

_Run away, Daniel_, she thought, suddenly wanting to scream the warning at him and shove him to a safe distance (another realm altogether might suffice). _Run as far away from me as you possibly can_.

"I've hurt you," he said, dismayed. He swiped the leftover salve into the grass and whisked away her fresh tears with the backs of his fingers.

"No." _Never_. "It already feels better," she said, and that much was true. "Thank you."

Regina's hands were not so easily mended; she gasped as Daniel lowered them into the bucket of tepid water. Tiny daggers of pain jabbed into her flesh, and the pressure building behind her eyes and in her ears made the world too bright, too loud. For a moment, she was right back in her bedchamber, fists pounding against the mirror as it rained down in glinting, razor-sharp drops. She struggled not to pull free while Daniel wiped off the grime with another clean cloth, revealing the crisscross pattern of scratches, like a child's unskilled needlework, on her knuckles. The gouges were deeper on the sides of her hands and in her palms, where she had clutched up pieces of glass and stuffed them in the pillowcase with no more heed than if she were gathering feathers. She turned her face aside, shamed by the weak whimpering sounds that escaped her when the tweezers plucked out bits of glass—and a few splinters from the writing desk—as Daniel discovered them. Teeth gritted, he made an apologetic sound of his own, extracting a shard the length of a straight pin from the heel of her palm.

"I expect I won't get caught sketching again for quite a while," Regina said shakily, watching the bloody glass plink into the bloody water bucket and sink to the bottom.

Daniel mopped at the bright rivulets that flowed anew from each hand, first with a wet cloth, then a dry one. His fingertips were stained as if he had been picking red raspberries, and pink water dripped into the cuffs of his sleeves, spreading like dye on the light fabric. He finally quelled most of the bleeding—or at least slowed it down enough to finish dressing the cuts. "Is . . . is that why she confined you to your bedchamber?"

"Among other reasons," Regina said in a dark monotone.

She refused to look at him, and he moved on quickly, dispensing tidy little blobs of ointment to each gash and blowing lightly on them afterwards. Then, with a tinge of admiration in his voice, he asked, "Did you really climb all the way down from that window of yours?"

"Mm-hmm."

"But it's so high. You might have been killed!"

"And how is it you know which window is mine?" Regina asked briskly, eyebrow quirked.

"Well, I— I just— that is to say, I . . ." Daniel made a series of helpless gestures, resembling a court jester emoting in some farcical tragedy. The title: _Mortification_. He opened and closed his mouth several more times without producing words, then gave up and shrugged. The tips of his ears glowed hotly when he noticed the faint smirk twitching at one corner of Regina's mouth. He shook his head and chuckled to himself, but continued blushing as he unraveled the linen strips and sawed them over his knee to smooth them out.

Regina bumped her shoulder into his. "It's not so awfully high when you're used to it. Although, I don't know how I shall get back up this time."

They drifted into pensive silence, gazing down at her raw and aching hands for several moments. Slowly, Daniel reached for the left one, guiding it to him by the wrist, and began winding the linen around it in snug, overlapping layers. He tied off both ends of the strip in her palm, securing the knot through a buttonhole in the fabric, and Regina wondered if he had torn up one of his shirts just to make her bandages. So, in the last half hour or more, he had offered her everything from solace to the shirt off his back, and she had repaid him only in blood. Such was her lot in life, it seemed.

"Worry not, fair maiden," Daniel said with a gallant air, and wrapped the right hand as thoroughly as the first, until just the tips of Regina's fingers were visible. He turned them over to rest in his palm, the desire to kiss them unmistakable in that wistful expression he wore. (_Not yet_, Regina thought. _Not while they're cold as ice _. . .) Ever the gentleman, he instead buffed gently at her fingernails with the pad of his thumb, then retrieved the tweezers and started whittling at the dirt below each nail. It fell away in clumps the size of mouse droppings, disappearing into the grass. "I'll return you safely to your bower by sundown. You won't even miss supper."

"Oh, that remains to be seen. What's the old proverb? 'An unruly child hunger mild,'" Regina said, trying to match his playful tone and failing miserably. Her stomach betrayed her even further, letting out a low, mournful rumble.

Daniel's smile faded and he finished grooming her nails without a word, his brows knitted in thought. He swished the tweezers into the water bucket and put the cap back on the salve, returning both to his satchel, along with the leftover rags. Then he hopped to his feet and circled underneath the apple tree, examining its fertile branches, his head thrown full back, eyes narrowed in decision. When he spotted his target, he leapt spryly off the ground and caught the bough in his hands, swiping at its low-hanging fruit. He landed on his feet again with a solid thump, and rounded the trunk, shining two large honeycrisps against his vest. Beaming, he presented one of the apples to Regina, but realized his mistake at the last minute and retracted it with a guilty look.

"Aha," he said, face lighting up the very next moment.

Regina observed the little show with thinly veiled amusement, her eyebrows going up when he rummaged in the satchel and produced a small folding knife. "My, aren't we efficient," she said dryly. But she accepted the thin slice of apple he pared off and extended on the knife blade, and though she had eaten more than her share of fruit from the tree in its lifetime, she felt certain the pulp had never tasted so sweet. She chewed it ruminatively, pulsing lip forgotten, her eyes on his until they both reddened in the face and glanced away.

"I suppose we ought to get you back now," Daniel said, reluctant.

"I suppose we ought." Regina still wasn't certain she could move from the spot—this makeshift graveyard that had summoned her like the moon pulling the tide—but with Daniel's help, she stood; she put one foot in front of the other; she left one plot of buried secrets behind, on her way to yet another.

As they walked, Daniel continued doling out pieces of the apple, and Regina had finished it herself by the time they neared the garden wall a few yards from the main residence. He chucked the core into the tall grass behind them and offered her the second apple, which she declined, appetite suddenly gone. She would have chosen a different path, no matter how roundabout, if there had been one; but this direction was their only option if they were to remain unseen—at least by human eyes. Thankfully, they could skirt the wall without traveling through the garden itself. Still, Regina held her breath, chest seizing up whenever so much as a twig snapped underfoot.

Daniel must have sensed the danger as well, or so Regina thought, fooled by his quiet nature. They had almost made it past the garden without incident, almost made it to safety (if the gore-stained bed sheets dangling from her chamber window like a flag of surrender after a bloody battle could so be called), but Daniel paused by the patch of wild daisies sprouting up from a crevice near the wall's foundation. Before Regina realized his intentions, he bent down and plucked one of the flowers from the ground, then stood with it outstretched towards her. She stared at it, a painful lump in her throat, for such a long time that his face fell and he lowered his hand gradually. Just for a second, in the strange shadows cast by the dwindling sunlight, it looked as though he were sinking into the earth.

In one fluid motion, Regina snatched at the daisy and hooked her arm through Daniel's, propelling him forward so abruptly he stumbled to catch up. When they were out of earshot, she halted just as quickly and whirled on him with enough ferocity to fan her skirt at the knees and send him back a step. "Promise me you'll never go in there," she said in an urgent whisper, ignoring the dull thudding in her bandaged hands as she placed them on either of his arms.

"Where? Your mother— Cora's garden? Why—"

"Just promise," she hissed, clapping a hand to his mouth.

Something in her desperate tone and wide, pleading eyes got through to him, and he nodded when she eased her palm away. "You have my word," he said, and from that day forward he never would set foot inside the garden walls. Regina laid her hand on his chest—over the place where that steady rhythm beat out its constant refrain: _pure, honest, true_—thanking him silently, eyes closed as if in prayer. When she opened them again, the daisy was in her line of sight and she had the urge to fling it away from her, away from the kind boy who was gazing down with his heart in his eyes. But she couldn't do it while Daniel looked at her like that, so she held it to her own breast this time and resumed trudging alongside him, his hand hovering near the small of her back.

The flower was most likely harmless, anyway; it wasn't one of Cora's creations. She would never waste her time planting something so ordinary as a daisy. But Regina still breathed a sigh of relief when she tucked the stem into her pocket. Then she peered up at the ladder of knotted sheets and the window it issued from, and all relief vanished. It _was_ awfully high when you were looking straight up at it. They might as well have been preparing to scale the walls of Camelot.

Daniel gave the sheets several experimental tugs—and then several more. "I'm sure you tie a skillful knot," he said, noticing Regina's dubious expression. He waved her in behind him and stooped down.

"Well. Better than you lie, at least," she replied, arms curling around his collar.

And so they began their ascent, Regina clinging to Daniel's back, her limbs fastened about his neck and hips in a death grip. Even with his rolled up cloak fashioned into a harness at their middle, she felt her hold on him grow more precarious with each passing moment. She squeezed her eyes shut against the retreating ground below and the fire raging in her forearms, and concentrated on the huffs and puffs of Daniel's breathing, his muscles straining to their limits.

It took minutes to reach the top, but Regina could have sworn an eternity had passed before Daniel grunted out her name. He jerked at the knot in the cloak until the entire thing unraveled and swooped to the ground like a giant bat after its prey. She wedged her foot into the stirrup of his available hand, scrabbling up and over. Her hands screamed in protest as she pawed at the windowsill, unable to find the purchase or the strength required to pull herself inside. A rush of fear and total release—_freedom!_—surged through her as she started to slip, but a firm boost at her backside sent her sprawling onto the floor of the bedchamber. She scooted around on her rear, kicked loose from a tangle of skirts and crawled frantically back to Daniel, whose head and arms, grappling at the sill, were the only visible parts of him.

"You all right?" he asked, panting.

"Me? You're the one dangling thousands of feet in the air!" Regina pinched uselessly at his shirt, as if that would prevent him from plunging to certain death. Leaning on her elbows, she glanced over the sill and gasped at the sight of his poor legs swaying in the breeze. Energy restored, she clamped her hands under Daniel's armpits and tugged with all her might, foot braced against the wall.

"Uh, Regina? What're you doing?" His voice was muffled by her dress.

"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm saving your life," she said, grunting and tugging some more, without budging him an inch. When his whole body shuddered, she thought for sure this was it, this was the end of her stable boy—goodbye, young man, and fare thee well . . . Until she realized the wheezing sound he had made was laughter, not a dying man's last breath. "Or I might just leave you hanging out here for the birds to . . ."

Regina had relaxed her grip on him and settled back inside the window a bit, only to find their faces so close together she felt the warmth from Daniel's laughter against her mouth. The chestnut-colored fringe that fell across his forehead tickled at hers. His teeth were parted just enough for her to see the pink rosette of tongue hidden behind their even, white ridges. _Yours_, she thought, and with the slightest tilt of her chin, brushed her lips to his while they were still split into a grin. She applied no pressure, afraid his first taste of her would be blood. But after a moment's pause, he puckered a kiss almost too light to feel against the notch of her upper lip.

(She decided then and there to keep the scar. She would feed Cora whatever lies were necessary to explain the broken looking-glass and the cuts. She would even agree to being healed by magic. But the scar was hers now. _A reminder of what happened to disobedient daughters_—at least that was how she would sell it. And if Cora used her power to somehow drain every other memory of this nightmarish day from Regina's mind, so be it. Oblivion had become an old, old friend Regina welcomed with open arms. Besides that, even Cora's power had its limitations. She couldn't steal memories she didn't know existed.)

Daniel's lips made a soft pecking sound when Regina departed, the dry bottom curve adhering to moisture at the threshold of her mouth, unwilling to let go. His eyelashes batted open, and he flashed a love drunk little grin. Then: "I . . . I can't hold on much longer."

"Run along home, boy," Regina said, and this time the nickname soothed like a balm.

While Daniel shinnied down the wall with impressive ease, Regina watched from above, hand drifting into her pocket. As he hastened through the courtyard, taking hearty bites from the apple he had stored in his satchel and tossing occasional glances back at her window, she brought out the daisy and began plucking its rumpled blades off one at a time. And when he disappeared into a line of trees beyond Cora's garden, the last three petals fluttered into the darkness below.

_He loves me . . ._

_He loves me not . . ._

_He loves me . . . _


End file.
